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ld bet me and tripp would be there and we d be together unless one of us was on the air at the time so tripp is a mass media big shot now he s a program director at a station in memphis and i was joking with him yesterday about how i might call him up for a job someday he came back with a response of his own well what are you doing right now want your own morning show you ve always wanted to do mornings haven t you wood ha wouldn t that be fun i told him i appreciated the thought but that i was a little busy in san francisco right now and would be for a few years but it got me to thinking what kind of missional opportunities might present themselves for a person who were in a position like that if i had my own mildly entertaining morning show how many people would be willing to listen to me tell them about jesus because of my job now don t worry i m not going anywhere just thinking out loud i think some people s ministry would be most effective if they weren t working in ministry full time what do you think originally posted on westcoastwitness com leave a comment posted in culture ministry tags missional living would you want your own morning show posted by dvdbrumley february 7 2009 an atheist s point of view embedded is a video of penn gillette from the magic comedy duo penn telller this man is an outspoken atheist although he rambles on quite a bit he raises an interesting question at the end that every person trying to be missional or motivate others to join in the cause should hear this man s idea about the mission of christianity was changed by one man being missional enjoy 4 comments posted in the continuing conversion of the church tags atheist missional penn gillette posted by dvdbrumley january 20 2009 who is in your life reflections from a study of isaiah as one begins to read the book of isaiah they are introduced to a story of god s patience being tested to the breaking point fed up with the people of judah god has made the decision to allow foreign men into their country and to utterly destroy minus a remnant isaiah 10 11 the people of judah in a hope that they would some day return to him this is a decision that had to have troubled god and isaiah was his messenger to ahaz the king of judah god sent isaiah to ahaz to tell him that yes hell was coming but that everything would be fine at this point god finds as if he didn t already know that ahaz s trust in god was in word and not need see isaiah 7 this refusal of ahaz to accept the peace that god was attempting to bestow sent god s wrath to a different level and a subsequent worsening of the pain that god was going to allow to be put upon the people of judah as the study of isaiah goes further we learn that god promises a redeemer to not only the people of judah but to all that redeemer is of course jesus christ and no book in the bible more succinctly sets the table for christ s coming than isaiah praise god there are other less important lessons in this story of ahaz found in the first part of the book of isaiah one of these is one that when i presented it to my sunday school class of brilliant young adults was debated heavily that lesson is that when we don t trust god with all aspects of our lives no matter how small or important it seems to us that his protection a k a christ s intercession for christians is lowered from around us and people are allowed into our lives homes and affairs that will rip us apart given the chance just as god s lowering of protection from around judah allowed the assyrians and syrians to come in and destroy their nation the same applies to our lives today when we refuse to trust god with our total care he will remind us that we should if we re lucky no more so can this be applied than to the recent financial crisis in our nation if this hits you wrong then i am sorry but sometimes we need to be reminded of what our lack of faith is doing to our lives that being said if you have are investing money in the stock market 401ks or other elaborate investments in which you say here take my money do as you please good or evil with it for now and then let me reap the benefits of it later then you are showing a lack of trust in god and you need to examine your faith as i do as well you are essentially saying god i know you told me you would care for me but i better follow what the world tells me to do on this one so i can have a happy retirement and send my kids to college that doesn t sound like trust to me we christians so eagerly and happily hand over differing percentages of our monthly incomes to stock brokers who do god knows what with your money we fund debauchery when is the last time you checked the faith of the owners of your company that you contribute to keep afloat and get richer think for a second about your financial advisers have they ever offered to discuss the gospel with you have you ever followed up with what foundations causes or religious efforts the companies you invest in support i don t know a great many stock brokers but from what i ve seen in their depictions in movies they aren t the best people in the world what are you saying to god when you trust someone like that more than him regarding your financial future what are you saying to god when you contribute more to a company that is pro choice as if you ve even checked than to your church contribution need we be reminded that job rued the day he was born when god lowered his protection from around him i am inspired to write this as men close to me have lost millions in recent months these are holy and good men and when you hear them discuss their losses they do so with a undertone of regret that they may have forgotten what was important these people that god allowed into their lives have now caused them pain worry and heartache and it saddens me to see it i think to matthew 25 and i see men s hidden money being spread out to those who already have more than they can count how sad i urge all who read this to evaluate your finances and investments and look at who you are giving your money to is it not an idol set up to the god of success and wealth if not then god bless you for being a good steward of his gifts if so look to jesus words in the gospel and find in your heart what he expects us wretched sinners to do with the gifts he allows us to receive do it before god lowers his protection more avoid prosperity gospel and remember that god doesn t want you to be happy financially he wants you to be happy spiritually god bless you leave a comment posted in spiritual formation tags isaiah isaiah 7 money wealth posted by michaelhanegan january 3 2009 new resources page in an effort to share as much material as possible we have created a new resources page that has books blog links articles videos and soon a blogroll check it out if you are aware of something not currently on the list leave a comment on that page or email michael hanegan 1 comment posted in resources updates posted by rogueminister december 16 2008 church as public library last week was final exams for me so i spent a lot of time at the local public library working on papers and reading i noticed something that i thought would be helpful as we try to envision what christ s church should look like these days perhaps something like this as first let me say that i am unoffically add so i get distracted very easily so as i was reading and writing i kept looking up to see what was going on around me i noticed something that is fairly rare around here diversity outside of the seminary and college jessamine county kentucky is probably one of the least diverse places on earth or at least in the united states almost 95 of the people are white and the average income is well above the average in ky the library however painted a very different picture which now that i look back on all the public libraries i have visited seems to be true all over the place there was a wide variety of skin tones socio economic backgrounds education levels and ages at the library i even had conversations with a black man working on his ph d a white stay at home mother of three and a working class grandmother there were those who appeared to be homeless surfing the internet and keeping out of the rain while a lady continuing her education was sitting at the coffee shop and a group of kids were browsing the dvd section this to me is a great vision of what church should be it should be a place where people of all backgrounds from every walk of life can come for refuge and for knowledge and information it should provide a variety of services free of charge and give all people an opportunity to better themselves our library here even has a book delivery van that takes a variety of media to those who cant make it to the library building again we see a good example for the church we should go to those who can t or won t come to us and take them the good news of jesus and the resources to better themselves next time you meet with your congregation i challenge you to look around what do you see do you notice a relatively homogenous group or do you see people from a variety of races cultures socio economic situations and education levels if you see mostly people that look like you then how can we change that how do we learn from the public library as we seek to bear witness to jesus and his diverse kingdom 3 comments posted in contextualization culture ecclesiology ministry theology uncategorized tags diversity jesus kingdom of god public library posted by mattdabbs december 11 2008 too important to be shy i am an introvert you may not know it if you spend some time with me but i am when i was a kid i lived out in the country and there weren t any other kids around except my older brother he didn t care for sports so i would go out in the yard and play baseball by myself i really didn t mind it because i was shy to begin with i found out in college that being an introvert was great for the gift of study it didn t bother me a bit to stay in my room at harding for hours and hours doing homework and studying for tests in my years at harding i made two trips to little rock and none to memphis for entertainment deep down inside i am about as introverted as they come when i was in graduate school in gainesville i heard a guest speaker one sunday night at church say that shy people didn t really have to share the gospel they could use other talents for god besides talking to people about jesus when he was done i lovingly shared with him the fact that i was an introvert but i didn t mind sharing jesus with people he said you don t seem like an introvert to me i didn t mind being so non introvert like by walking up to him and sharing my view because i thought it was an important thing to do i told him that when we think things are important we will find a way to talk about them take the biggest introvert who is a sports fan and talk about their favorite team around them and how extroverted they become why because the subject is important to them sharing the gospel is for all of god s people because the message is too important not to share we all have comfort zone issues to overcome and we cannot let that keep people from hearing about jesus when the message is important we will find a way to share it 2 comments posted in uncategorized posted by nick gill december 2 2008 the call of the kingdom one of the clearest expressions of contempt for christianity is credited to the philosopher celsus who wrote this their injunctions are like this let no one educated no one wise no one sensible draw near for these abilities are thought by us to be evils but as for anyone ignorant anyone stupid anyone uneducated anyone who is a child let him come boldly by the fact that they themselves admit that these people are worthy of their god they show that they want and are able to convince only the foolish dishonorable and stupid and only slaves women and little children other mystery religions trying to gain converts say this whosoever has pure hands and a wise tongue and again others say whosoever is pure from all defilement and whose soul knows nothing of evil and who has lived well and righteously come to us such are the preliminary exhortations of those who promise purification from sins but let us hear those christians call whosoever is a sinner they say whosoever is unwise whosoever is a child and in a word whosoever is a wretch the kingdom of god will receive him why on earth this contemptible preference for sinners everett ferguson backgrounds of early christianity grand rapids william b eerdmans publishing co 1987 reprint 1993 p 563 ps thanks to jeremy morris for sharing this quote leave a comment posted in uncategorized posted by weswoodell november 26 2008 coming and going good article from leadershipjournal net check out the article coming and going posted today at leadershipjournal net the writer of the article had a sit down with neil cole and ed young jr two very different leaders with very different outlooks on how the mission of god should be carried out neil cole is the founder of church multiplication associates and writer of organic church growing faith where life happens good book btw ed young jr is the senior pastor of fellowship church a multi site satellite linked megachurch with four campuses in the dallas metroplex and a fifth in miami fl i had some fun with this post the other day and hope you did too but just for clarification i see value in what each of these men and others like them are doing i don t know that one model is necessarily better than the other they have the same core goal in mind to help people know jesus they re simply different i do however know that one model will resonate more or less with different people in other words the megachurch model will work splendidly for some while the simple church model will work splendidly for others rather than polarize the reading audience here by advocating one over the other there are pros and cons with both are there any creatives out there that can think of ways we could weave these models together please take some time to read the article and do a bit of thinking out loud in the form of a comment how could a new church plant utilize concepts or methods from each model simple church and megachurch to carry out the mission of god in their community 1 comment posted in ecclesiology tags ed young jr leadership journal megachurch neil cole simple church simple church vs megachurch posted by nick gill november 17 2008 the mission of god on the road to gaza now an angel of the lord said to philip rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from jerusalem to gaza this is a desert place and he rose and went and there was an ethiopian a eunuch a court official of candace queen of the ethiopians who was in charge of all her treasure he had come to jerusalem to worship and was returning seated in his chariot and he was reading the prophet isaiah and the spirit said...
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